






• ' V 












.^^ ^^ 









A 



-n-o^ 






<^ 



■y> 



^^0^ 






<^ 



^ ^'*^*^.* ^ '^ ^>'^%^^ <5/\ ^^^^.' '^' ^ -.-^^-. ,.^ 



:^ t..o^ 



o 


















.0 





o *'., s* A 






0^ ^ -T^^T^- A 



" " * ^O 









.<J^ 



\ 



o V 



^"^ '>^^^^/ ^h^' 



V 



;^ 



V 



\^ 









o 

-T^^V^ %^^^f.^^\c/ V^^^> "^^-'^.'^^c 




'^0' 



'b V'' 



'^0' 



"-..^^ .';?!^»". "\/ :'^^- "-..^* .- 



^ V f ■• * °* C 






A 



^ 



^"-V-. 




'^ p. V 










v-^^ 









" 



o -.-^^.T^' A 



^ ^y^%'^\' 



.^ 



\ 



,0 



^"•^<^. 







<" 










. -t 



't^.o^ 



C^ 



^ V . . 

^ .-^^. /^'"o ^^^«V ,o' '% "'5^7 /'"%^ 




*■ !fl»J-«fyf^'*<' 



Speech of William H. Seward at Detroit. 



The Slaveholding Class Dominant in the RepubHc. 



SPEECH 



OF 



WILLIAM H. SEWARD, 



AT DETROIT, OCTOBER 2, 1856. 



WASHINGTON, D. C. 

PUBLISHED BY THE REPUBLICAN ASSOCIATION OF WASHINGTON. 
Buell & Blanchard, Printers. 

1857. 



Gilt 

W. li. Sho&maiiier 
7 S '06 







4 l«V/ < 



SPEECH OF MR. SEWARD. 



Fellow-Citizens : The process of empire- 
building in the United States is in some respects 
new and peculiar. We had not here a State 
which was compact and complete at its begin- 
ning, and we have not conquered other nations 
or planted colonies, near or distant, to be held 
as dependencies by force alone. On the con- 
trary, we had a broad foundation laid, upon 
which were raised at first only thirteen columns, 
a portion of an indefinite number, which were 
to be erected during a long future, all of one 
material and equal strength, and all to be com- 
bined inseparably, according to one great origi- 
nal design. 

New St:ites, ultimately to become members of 
the Federal Union, pass through stages of unor- 
ganized colonization, and of dependence and 
pupilage under the Federal Government, or that 
of some foreign Power, and receive their biases 
and even form their social institutions during 
those early stages. Nevertheless, so intimate is 
the union of all these States, that each exerts 
no measured influence upon every other, while 
the fortune of every one is inseparably involved 
in the common destiny of all. 

You will infer at once from these statements 
that the nature and character of the institutions, 
of even any one maturing Territory in the Uni- 
ted States, are subjects of the highest and pos- 
sibly even vital importance. That, although 
caprice and oppression may be harmlessly prac- 
ticed by other nations upon their provinces and 
colonies, yet such wrongs, committed by our 
Federal Government against our growing Terri- 
tories, are equally injurious to those Territories, 
and dangerous, if not disastrous, to the whole 
Republic. 

It is my purpose to show you, on this occa- 
sion, that the slaveholding class of the American 
people is systematically and successfully per- 
verting the administration of the Government, 
especially in regard to the Territories, so as to 
change the Constitution, and endanger the sta- 
bility, welfare, and liberty of the Union. 

First, insomuch as this proposition must seem 
to you bold, if not new, I shall show from gen- 



eral principles that it may possibly be true ; and 
secondly, I shall establish its truth by undenia- 
ble demonstration. 

First. The proposition may be true. Property 
is an essential element of civil society. So is 
liberty, which, properly understood, is only the 
equal security of all citizens against oppression. 
How to adjust the balance between property and 
liberty in States, is the great problem of govern- 
ment. Property is always jealous of enlarged 
liberty, and especially so when it is based on 
relations subversive of natural justice, which is 
nothing more than equality among men. Prop- 
erty, therefore, has always a bias towards op- 
pression, and it derives power to oppress from 
its own nature, the watchfulness of its possess- 
ors, and the ease with which they can com- 
bine. Liberty is exposed to the danger of such 
oppression by means of the inconsiderateness 
and the jealousies which habitually prevail 
among subjects or citizens. In every State, all 
the property classes sympathize with each other 
through the force of common instincts of fear, 
cupidity, and ambition, and are easily marshal- 
ed under the lead of one which becomes domi- 
nant, and represents the whole. Wherever the 
rights and duties of the property classes are de- 
fined and regulated, with sufiBcient constraints 
to prevent oppression, and liberty is at the same 
time so bounded as to secure property against 
social or individual aggression, there the people 
are free and the State is republican. Where 
this balance is not accurately adjusted, liberty 
is abridged, and a property class administers the 
Government, in the form of an aristocracy, or a 
monarchy, or a despotism. The mere mention 
of the names of Switzerland, Venice, France, 
(her various alternations being remembered,) 
Great Britain, and Russia, furnishes all needful, 
illustrations of these positions. Human natui^; 
and the physical elements of society are every-., 
where the same. It is therefore possible thati 
social and political errors and evils, which have., 
frequently existed elsewhere, may find entiance 
here. 

Secondly. The allegation of the pery:ersi(ia QJ5 



the Government by the slave-property class, 
which I have made, is true. First, let us see 
■whether such a direction of the Government as 
it describes was designed or expected by its 
founders. On the contrary, they laid the found- 
ations of the States, not in property — much less 
in slave property — but in the natural rights or 
political equality of men. They established tew 
safeguards of property, knowing how apt it is 
to take care of itself, while they built strong 
bulwarks around liberty, knowing how easily 
liberty is always overthrown. The Declaration 
of Independence, which no weak or wicked citi- 
zen then dared to pronounce a series of abstrac- 
tions, recited as the fundamental truth of the 
great political society which it ushered into the 
presence of nations, that " all men are created 
equal " — " endowed by their Creator with the 
inalienable rights " of " life, liberty, and the 
pursuit of happiness;" and that "Governments 
are instituted among men to secure those 
rights," and derive their powers only " from the 
consent of the governed." 

The Convention which framed the Constitu- 
tion submitted it to the American people by a 
letter bearing the signature of George Washing- 
ton, in which its character was defined with a 
steady hand in a clear light. " Individuals," 
said the Convention, " entering into society must 
give up a share of liberty to preserve the rest. 
The magnitude of the sacrifice must depend as 
well on situation and circumstances as on the 
object to be attained. In all our deliberations 
on this subject, the object which the Convention 
has kept steadily in view was the consolidation 
of the Union, in which is involved our prosperi- 
ty, felicity, safety, perhaps our national exist- 
ence. This important consideration, seriously 
and deeply impressed on our minds, led each 
State in the Convention to be less rigid on 
points of inferior magnitude than might have 
been otherwise expected." An analysis of the 
Constitution, especially including its amend- 
ments, justifies this declaration, that the points 
on which liberality of concession to property 
was exercised were only those of inferior mag- 
nitude, and that neither prosperity, felicity, safe- 
ty, nor national existence, was intended to be 
put at hazard for the preservation of a mere 
remnant or shadow of liberty. The people, 
speaking in the Constitution, declared their high 
objects in that great transaction in words sim- 
ple, majestic, and comprehensive, " To form a 
perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic 
tranquillity, provide for the common defence, 
j)romote the general welfare, and secure the 
Wessings of liberty to ourselves and to our pos- 
terity." They boldly and directly laid the axe 
:to t^e roots of privileges and of classes, they 
crokfe the very mainsprings of aristocracy, or at 
.east th/ey attempted to do so by ordaining that 
•'no titte of nobility shall be granted by the 
United States, or by any State;" and that " Con- 
gress shaU *nake no law respecting an establish- 
jB€jit of reli|^ion, or prohibiting the free exercise 
thereof." Although the people well knew nearly 
every fourth person in the new Republic was 
actually a. glave, .§jid that perhaps one of every 



twenty persons was a slaveholder — and so they 
well understood the existence among them- 
selves of caste and class — yet they pertinaciously 
refused to recognise either, and, on the contrary, 
treated of all the subjects of the Government, 
under the common and promiscuous description 
of "persons" — thus confounding classes, and rec- 
ognising only men. While they aimed at an 
ultimate extinction of that caste, and the class 
built upon it, by authorizing Congress to pro- 
hibit the importation of " persons " who were 
slaves after 1808, and to tax it severely in the 
mean time, and while they necessarily left to the 
individual States the management of the domes- 
tic relations of all classes and castes existing 
therein, they especially declared what should be 
the rights and relations of all " persons," so far 
as they were to be affected by the action of the 
Federal Government which they were establish- 
ing. " The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus 
^hall not be suspended, unless when, in case of 
rebellion or invasion, the public security shall 
require it." " No bill of attainder or ex post 
facto law shall be passed." " No capitation or 
other direct tax shall be laid, unless in propor- 
tion to the census." " The United States shall 
guaranty to every State in the Union a republi- 
can form of Government." "The right of the 
people to keep and bear arms shall not be in- 
fringed." " The right of the people to be secure 
in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, 
against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall 
not be violated." They ordained " trial by jury," 
prohibited " excessive bail and excessive fines, 
and cruel and unusual punishments," and " re- 
served to the States and to the people all the 
powers of Government not expressly delegated 
to the United States." 

Among these broad and comprehensive reser- 
vations of liberty, only two inferior and guarded 
stipulations were made with the slaveholding 
class — namely, that " no person held to service 
or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, 
escaping into another, shall, in consequence of 
any law or regulation therein, be discharged 
from such service or labor, but shall be deliver- 
ed up, on claim of the party to whom such ser- 
vice or labor may be due;" and that "represent- 
atives and taxes shall be appoitioned among 
the several States which shall be included with- 
in this Union, according to their respective num- 
bers, which shall be determined by adding to 
the whole number of free persons, including 
those bound to service for a term of years, and 
excluding Indians not taxed, three-jifihs of all 
other persons." 

It is manifest that Congress cannot, without 
violating the rights of the people reserved by 
their Constitution, grant any favor or privilege 
or advantage to the slaveholding class, or even 
ordain or permit Slavery to exist within the ex- 
clusive sphere of the Federal jurisdiction. 

The spirit of the Declaration of Independence 
and of the Con?titution of the United States, 
thus flagrantly hostile to classes, and especially 
to the slaveholding class, entered largely into 
the contemporaneous Constitutions and laws of 
most of the States. All of them established re- 



publican forme of Government. Most of them 
asserted the political equality of men. All of 
them prohibited orders of nobility and ecclesi- 
astical classes, estates in mortmain, and estates 
by primogeniture. Seven States immediately or 
speedily prohibited Slavery, and all of the oth- 
ers earnestly debated the same great and benign 
reform. Finally, though unable thus early to 
abolish Slavery in six of the States where it al- 
ready existed, the people in the Revolutionary 
Congress eflfectually provided for excluding it 
forever in that part of the national domain 
■which laid northwest of the Ohio, and in the 
States which were thereafter to be established 
there. 

I think, fellow-citizens, that I have shown to 
your abundant satisfaction that such a direction 
of the Administration to the establishment and 
aggrandizement of the slaveholding class, as I 
have charged, if it indeed exists, is a perversion 
of the Constitution of the United States. 

Seventy years of our national history have 
been fulfilled. Fix your attention for a moment 
now on the slaveholding class, as it now exists. 
Although it has been abolished by State legisla- 
tion in seven of the first thirteen States, and al- 
though nine free States which exclude it have 
been since admitted into the Union, yet the 
slaveholding class nevertheless stands erect and 
firm in fifteen of the present thirty-one States, 
numbering 347,000 " persons," on the basis of 
3,204,000 other " persons " held to labor or ser- 
vice by the laws thereof, valued at twelve hun- 
dred millions of dollars, combined practically 
' with all the real estates in those States. This 
class spreads itself on the one bank of the Mis- 
sissippi to the Kansas river, and on the other to 
the Ohio, and along the Atlantic coast from the 
banks of the Delaware to those of the Rio Grande. 
In the States where this class exists, it is not 
merely secure — it is permanent and completely 
dominant, to the exclusion not merely of all civil 
rights on the part of the "persons who are held 
to labor or service " by it, but to the inhibition 
of voluntary emancipation by the owners of 
slaves, to the practical exclusion of free labor 
from the State, and with it freedom of speech, 
freedom of the press, freedom of the ballot-box, 
freedom of education, freedom of literature, and 
freedom of popular assemblies. Thus establish- 
ed by municipal institutions, the slaveholding 
class has become the governing power in each of 
the slaveholding States, and it practically chooses 
thirty of the sixty-two members of the Senate, 
ninety of the two hundred and thirty-three 
members of the House of Representatives, and 
one hundred and five of the two hundred and 
ninety-five electors of President and Vice Presi- 
dent of the United States. 

Let us now repair to the Federal Capital. Ton 
see, that although it is sadly wanting in the ele- 
ments of industry and enterprise which distin- 
guish the hundred cities of the free States, yet 
it is a respectable metropolis, rich in costly na- 
tional structures, monuments, and gardens. This 
elegant and tasteful edifice is the palace of the 
President of the United States. Its incumbent, 
you know him right well, (for he has acquired 



a painful notoriety,) is a confessed apologist of 
the slave-property class, a libeller of freemen and 
free States which resist the aggressions of that 
class, an abetter of the extension of Slavery and 
of the enlargement of the domain of that class, 
by the violation of time-honored compacts, by 
armed usurpation, conquest, and judicial.corrup- 
tion. You remember his history. He had been 
equally obscure among civilians and generals, 
but he was deemed reliable by the slave-property 
class to suppress debate on its high preten- 
sions, and he was therefore advanced to the Chief 
Magistracy, to the exclusion of the most heroic, 
magnanimous, and successful military chief the 
country has produced. 

This broad highway is Pennsylvania avenue ; 
it leads between stately store-houses and dwell- 
ings, occupied by slaveholders with their slaves, 
to the Capitol. We ascend the terrace, through, 
groves embellished with statues and fountains, 
and enter the Senate Chamber. The Senate is 
before us. It is an august assembly of ambassa- 
dors, deputed by thirty-one equal States. It is 
august by reason of its functions. It is an Exec- 
utive Council, and exercises a negative voice on. 
all appointments to all places of trust, honor, or 
profit, in the Republic, and a negative also on all 
treaties of the Republic with foreign nations. As 
a Court of Impeachments it tries all political 
crimes committed by public agents, and as a 
legislative body its concurrence is necessary to the 
passage of all the laws of the Union. The age, 
experience, and dignity, of its members, together 
with the facility for transacting business which 
it derives from the smallness of its numbers, has 
enabled it to become the dominating political 
power in the Republic. The chair belongs to the 
Vice President of the United States. He who 
was last advanced to that office is now dead. 
You remember him. He was chosen from a 
slave State. The Senate elected in his place 
David R. Atchison, You know him well. He 
is chief statesman and captain in the usurpation 
and conquest recently effected by the slavehold- 
ing class in Kansas. When his duties in that 
relation called him away from the Capital, his 
place there was assigned to Jesse D. Bright, of 
Indiana. You know him also. He is accepta- 
ble and approved by the slave-property class, 
and he has deserved to be. 

At the feet of the presiding officer you see 
three Secretaries, while his chair is surrounded 
by printers, sergeants-at-arms, door-keepers, and 
pages. Each of them is either an active or pas- 
sive advocate of the policy of the slaveholding 
class. 

The business of the day opens with a debate 
on the relations of the country towards Great 
Britain and Central America — a theme involving 
not merely immediate peace or war, but ulti- 
mately the continental ascendency of the Re- 
public. The debate is instituted on the motion 
of the Committee on Foreign Relations. The 
chairman of that committee is Mr. James M. 
Mason, of Virginia, author of the last and most 
notorious of the fugitive slave laws. The other 
members are, Mr. Stephen A. Douglas, the found- 
er of that curious and evanescent system of 



8 



Territorial Government, whilom known by the 
name of Popular Sovereignty, but now recog- 
nised as Executive Usurpation ; Mr. John A. 
Slidell, of Louisiana, the same who has proposed 
a withdrawal of the naval squadron employed 
in suppressing the slave trade on the coast of 
Africa; Mr. John M. Clayton, of Delaware, who 
pronounces the prohibition of Slavery forever 
contained in the Missouri Compromise uncon- 
stitutional ; Mr. John B. Weller, of California, 
who upholds the Executive Usurpation and con- 
quest in Kansas ; and with these gentlemen is 
associated one opponent of the slaveholding 
class, namely, my honorable and excellent col- 
league, Mr. Hamilton Fish, of New York. 

The debate has ended while we have been can- 
Tassing the committee by which it was institu- 
ted. And now the question has changed to one 
of hardly less grave importance — namely, wheth- 
er the President of the United States shall be 
inhibited from employing the army as a police 
to enforce the tyrannical laws of the slavehold- 
ing conquerors of Kansas. This proposition of 
the House of Representatives is opposed by the 
Committee on Finance. That committee has 
for its chairman Mr. Robert M. T. Hunter, also 
of Virginia. He is the same Senator who has 
just now proposed to rescind that vote of the 
Senate which rather admitted than declared that 
the assault made by Preston S. Brooks, a Repre- 
sentative of South Carolina, in the Senate Cham- 
ber, on Mr. Charles Sumner, a Senator of Mas- 
sachusetts, for words spoken in debate, was a 
breach ot the privileges of the Senate. The other 
members of this great committee are Mr. James 
A. Pearce, of Maryland, whom you see in his 
place, franking for circulation his declaration in 
favor of the slaveholders' candidate for the Pres- 
idency ; Mr. Crittenden, of Kentucky, the same 
Senator who, as Attorney General, removed Mr. 
Fillmore's scruples concerning the suspension 
of the habeas corpus in the new Fugitive Slave 
Law ; Mr. Stuart, of Michigan ; Mr. Brodhead, of 
Pennsylvania ; and Mr. Toucey, of Connecticut — 
all of whom are denouncers of that agitation 
which consists in exposing the aggressions of the 
slaveholding class upon the liberties of the 
American people. 

The Senate needs but little time on a question 
so simple as that which has thus been raised. 
It has already vindicated the President's pre- 
rogative, and has now reached the third among 
the Orders of the Day — namely, the Improve- 
ment of the Navigation of the Mississippi, a 
measure introduced by the Committee on Com- 
merce. This committee has an aspect of un- 
usual equality. For although it embraces Mr. 
Clay, of Alabama, and Mr. Benjamin, of Louis- 
iana, who are eminent champions of the rights 
of slaveholders, it nevertheless has for its other 
members Mr. Hamlin, the newly elected Gov- 
ernor of Maine, the very ultra opponent of the 
slaveholding class who is now addressing you, 
and Mr. Dodge, of Wisconsin, who is its chair- 
man. But this equality is in part accidental. 
The chairman votes against the slaveholding 
class, under the plea of instructions given him 
by the State which he represents. Mr. Hamlin 



was yet in full communion with tVie slavehold- 
ing Democracy when he was appointed to this 
committee, and my own place on it was assign- 
ed to me while as yet I was a National Whig, 
and not as now a Republican. 

The debates in the Senate interrupt us. Let 
us therefore forget them, and proceed with our 
examination of the constitution of its commit- 
tees. The Committee on Manufactures seems to 
have been framed with decided impartiality. 
At its head is Mr. Wright of New Jersey, a sup- 
porter of the policy of the slaveholding class, 
while its other members are Mr. Allen of Rhode 
Island, a moderate opponent of the Nebraska 
and Kansas law, and Mr. Harlan of Iowa, Mr. 
Wilson of Massachusetts, and Mr. Trumbull of 
Illinois, three distinguished and effective advo- 
cates of Freedom. 

I admit a similar equality in the constitution 
of the Committee on Agriculture, for it consists 
of the same Mr. Allen and Mr. Harlan, together 
with the indomitable Mr. Wade of Ohio, who 
are friends of Freedom, and also Mr. Thomson 
of New Jersey, and Mr. Hunter of Virginia, 
who are defenders of the rights of slaveholders. 

Glad to be just to that class, I acknowledge 
with pleasure that equal liberality has been man- 
ifested in the organization of the Committee on 
the Militia. Its chairman is Mr. Houston, of 
Texas, and with him is associated Mr. Bell, a 
true representative of New Hampshire, as she 
was of old, is now, and always ought to be; and 
these certainly are not overbalanced by Mr. 
Dodge of Wisconsin, Mr. Biggs of North Caro- 
lina, and Mr. Thompson of Kentucky. 

I must nevertheless claim as a drawback on 
the magnanimity of the Senate, that these three 
last committees — namely, those " on Manufac- 
tures," " on Agriculture," and " on the Militia" — 
have charge of public interests which have long 
since been renounced by the Federal Govern- 
ment in favor of the States, and that consequent- 
ly those committees are understood to be mere- 
ly nominal, and that in fact they never submit 
any measures for the consideration of Congress. 

On the other hand we see prudence, if not 
jealousy, visibly manifested in the constitution 
of the Committee on the Army and the Navy, 
the two great physical forces of the Republic. 
The first of these consists of Mr. Weller of Cali- 
fornia, Mr. Fitzpatrick of Alabama, Mr. Jones 
of Tennessee, Mr. Iverson of Georgia, and Mr. 
Pratt of Maryland, all of whom favor the 
largest liberty to the slaveholding class ; and 
the other is composed of Mr. Mallory of Florida, 
Mr. Slidell of Louisiana, Mr. Thomson of 
New Jersey, Mr. James of Rhode Island, all re- 
liable supporters of that class, together with the 
independent, upright, and candid John Bell of 
Tennessee. 

The slaveholding class is a careful guardian of 
the Public Domain. Mr. Stuart, of Michigan, is 
chairman of the Committee on Public Lands. 
He is, as you well know, of the opinion that the 
agitation of Slavery is the prolific cause of the 
unhappy overthrow of Freedom in Kansas, and 
his associates are Mr. Johnson of Arlcansas, Mr. 
Clayton of Delaware, Mr. Mallory of Florida, 



9 



and Mr. Pugh of Ohio, who all are tolerant of 
that overthrow, and Mr. Foot, who so faith- 
fully represents the ever-reliable freemen of Yer- 
mont. 

Mr. Benjamin, of Louisiana, presides over the 
Committee on Private Claims upon the Public 
Domain, supported by Mr. Biggs of North 
Carolina and Mr. Thompson of Kentucky, with 
whom are associated Mr. Foster, a Senator of 
redeemed Connecticut, and Mr. Wilson of Massa- 
chusetts. 

Negotiations with the Indian tribes are con- 
tinually required, to provide room for the migra- 
tion of the slaveholder with his slaves. The 
Committee on Indian Aifairs, excluding all Sen- 
ators from ft-ee States, consists of Mr. Sebastian 
of Arkansas, Mr. Rusk of Texas, Mr. Toombs of 
Georgia, Mr. Brown of Mi^,sissippi, Mr. Reid of 
North Carolina, and Mr. Bell of Tennessee. 

Two representatives of the interests of Free- 
dom — Mr. Wade of Ohio, and Mr. Fessenden of 
Maine — hold places on the Committee on Claims 
against the Government ; but they are quite over- 
balanced by Mr. Brodhead of Pennsylvania, Mr. 
Geyer of Missouri, Mr. Iverson of Georgia, and 
Mr. Yulee of Florida. 

The Post Office in its transactions is more 
nearly domestic and municipal than any other 
Department of the Government, and comes home 
to the business and bosoms of the whole people. 
Mr. Rusk, of Texas, is chairman of the Com- 
mittee on the Post Office and Post Roads, and 
his associates are Mr. Yulee of Florida, Mr. 
Adams of Mississippi, Mr. Jones of Iowa, bal- 
anced by Mr. Collamer of Vermont, and Mr. 
Durkee of Wisconsin. 

No inconsiderate legislation favorable to free- 
men must be allowed in the Senate, no consti- 
tutional legislation necessary to the security of 
Slavery must be spared. The Committee on the 
Judiciary, charged with the care of the public 
jurisprudence, consists of Mr. Butler of South 
Carolina, Jlr. Bayard of Delaware, Mr. Geyer of 
Missouri, Mr. Toombs of Georgia, Mr. Toucey of 
Connecticut, and Mr. Pugh of Ohio. It was the 
Committee on the Judiciary which, in 1845, re- 
ported the bill for removing from the State 
courts into the Federal courts private actions 
brought against Federal officers for injuries 
committed by them under color of their author- 
ity. 

The slaveholding class watches with paternal 
jealousy over the slaveholding Capital of the 
United States. The Committee on the District 
of Columbia consists of Mr. Brown of Mississip- 
pi, Mr. Pratt of Maryland, Mr. Mason of Virginia, 
and Mr. Reid of North Carolina, together with 
Mr. Allen of Rhode Island. 

The Committee on Territories has care of the 
colonization, organization, and admission of new 
States, and so is in fact the most important of 
all the committees in the Senate. Mr. Douglas, 
of Illinois, is its chairman, and his associates 
are his willing supporters, Mr. Jones of Iowa, 
Mr. Sebastian of Arkansas, Mr. Biggs of North 
Carolina, together with Mr. Bell of Tennessee, 
and the able and faithful Mr. Collamer of Ver- 
mont. 



Finally, the science and literature of the coun- 
try must not be unduly directed to the prejudice 
of the interests of Slavery. The Committee on 
the Library take charge of this great intellectual 
interest, and it consists of Mr. Pearce of Mary- 
land, Mr. Cass, the eminent Senator from Michi- 
igan, and Mr. B.ayard of Delaware. 

You will say that my review of the commit- 
tees of the Senate is unjust, because you have 
not heard me mention the names of those dis- 
tinguished champions of Freedom in the Senate, 
John P. Hale of New Hampshire, and Charles 
Sumner of Massachusetts. Behold the places 
assigned to them I Mr. Hale graces the Com- 
mittees on " Revolutionary Claims " and on 
" Public Buildings," and Mr. Sumner fills a seat 
in the " Committee on Pensions." 

Do not think for a moment that I impeach the 
justice of the Senate in the construction of its 
committees. When you learn how strong the 
slaveholding interest in the Senate really is, you 
will perceive at once that its representatives are 
more than just — they are even liberal and gener- 
ous to its adversaries. You shall decide the 
question for yourselves, when I sh.ill have called 
the roll. Taking the admission of Kansas into 
the Union, under the Topeka Constitution, as a 
test, the classification of the Senate is as fol- 
lows : Rhode Island two voices for Slavery, 
Connecticut one, New Jersey one, Pennsylvania 
two, Delaware two, Maryland two, Virginia two, 
North Carolina two, South Carolina two, Geor- 
gia two, Alabama two, Mississippi two, Louisi- 
ana two, Ohio one, Kentucky two, Tennessee 
two, Indiana one, Illinois one, Missouri one, Ar- 
kansas two, Michigan two, Florida two, Texas 
two, Iowa one, Wisconsin one, California one — 
in all, twenty-six States, giving forty-three voices 
for Slavery. For Freedom — Maine two. New 
Hampshire two, Vermont two, Massachusetts 
two, Connecticut one. New York two, Ohio one, 
Illinois one, Iowa one — only nine States, giving 
only fourteen voices for Freedom. 

Freemen of Michigan, I think I perceive that 
you are oppressed with the atmosphere of the 
Senate of the United States. I cheerfully leave 
it. We have crossed the Rotunda, so rich in 
memorials of the patriotism and valor of our an- 
cestors, and now we are in the Hall of Repre- 
sentatives. The House of Represeutatives con- 
sists of two hundred and thirty-three members, 
chosen severally by the people in Representative 
districts. One hundred and forty-three of them 
are chosen by the people of the free States. 
This House virtually holds a controlling power 
over the Senate and the President, through its 
exclusive right to originate bills for raising pub- 
lic revenue. It is in fact the Commons of Amer- 
ica. But, alas! if the Senate be a strong citadel 
of Slavery, the House of Representatives is by 
no means an impregnable bulwark of Freedom. 
The slaveholding class enjoys no advantages 
which have not at some time been surrendered 
to it by the House of Representatives. To-day, 
indeed, we boast of a regenerated House of Rep- 
resentatives, faithful to the interests of human 
Freedom. But, after all, our boast is founded 
less on any vantage ground actually gained by 



10 



the House of Representatives, than on a retreat 
safely effected from the late legislative contest, 
instead of an absolute capitulation. God knows 
that I do not undervalue the brave and true 
champions of Freedom who have honored hu- 
manity so long in the House of Representatives: 
John Quincy Adams, Giddings, Thaddeus Ste- 
vens, Preston King, David Wilmot, John A. 
King, heretofore ; and now, Grow, and Bapks, 
and Burlingame, and Howard, and Sherman, 
and Morgan, and Colfax, and the Washburnes all. 
But I ask, nevertheless, what have we saved in 
this last, our only successful contest in the 
House of Representatives ? Whitfield, the rep- 
resentative of the Missouri borderers in Kansas, 
only expelled, and Reeder, the true representa- 
tive of that Territory, rejected ; a Speaker, faith- 
ful to justice and humanity, barely chosen by a 
plurality ; an investigation into the atrocious 
crimes of Kansas barely sustained ; a meager 
plurality vote for the admission of Kansas, un- 
der the Topeka Constitution, rendered half 
worthless by an embarrassment of the question 
with an incongruous vote for a reorganization 
of the Territorial Government ; and an eight 
months struggle for the equal independence of 
the House of Representatives, closed with a con- 
cession of absolute independence to the Senate, 
by consenting to its dictation in a bill directing 
the supplies for the support of the civil authori- 
ties and the army of the United States. 

Enough of the House of Representatives. 
Come along with me, fellow-citizens. This pas- 
sage, circuitous and descending, leads us into 
the chamber of the Supreme Court of the United 
States. It is an imposing tribunal, a great con- 
servative department of the Government. It 
regulates the administration of justice between 
citizens of the different States, and between 
States themselves. Its members are independ- 
ent of the Legislature and of the President, and 
it has the power of setting aside even laws and 
treaties, if it find them subversive of the Consti- 
tution of the United States. The court is just 
opened for the business of the day. How fitly 
does the proclamation of its opening close with 
the invociition, " God save the United States and 
this honorable court." See, also, how the mem- 
ories of the benefactors of mankind are held in 
honor here. There is the statue of John Jay, 
the author of emancipation in New York. Alas, 
our imagination has quite deluded us. The 
court consists of a Chief Justice and eight Asso- 
ciate Justices. Of these, five were called from 
slave States, and four from free States. The 
opinions and bias of each of them were care- 
fully considered by the President and Senate 
when he was appointed. Not one of them was 
found wanting in soundness of politics, accord- 
ing to the slaveholder's exposition of the Con- 
stitution, and those who were called from the 
free States were even more distinguished in that 
respect than their brethren from the slavehold- 
ing States. 

We have thus completed our survey of the 
supreme authorities of the Republic. Let us now 
leave the Capitol, and look into the subordinate 
departments. 



In this modest edifice is the Department of 
State. It is the depository of the seals of the 
Republic. It directs and regulates the merely 
Executive operations of government at home, 
and all its foreign relations. Its agents are 
numbered by the hundred, and they are dis- 
persed in all civilized countries throughout the 
world. From the chief here in his bureau to 
the Secretaries of Legation in South America, 
Great Britain, France, Russia, Turkey, and 
China, there is not one of these agents who has 
ever rebuked or condemned the extension or ag- 
grandizement of Slavery. There is not one who 
does not even defend and justify it. There is 
not one who does not maintain that the flag of 
the United States covers with its protection the 
slaves of the slaveholding class on the high 
seas. 

In the majestic pile behind this unique but 
graceful colonnade, sits the Secretary of the 
Treasury. lie manages the revenues and ex- 
penditures of the United States, and guards and 
improves their sources, commerce, and the pub- 
lic lands. Seventy millions of dollars annually 
pass through his hands into those of other pub- 
lic agents, contractors, creditors, and foreign 
Powers. He directs the movements of agents 
who, scattered abroad in all the seaports and 
in all the States and Territories, are counted by 
the thousands. His wand contracts or opens 
banks, and frees or embargoes the merchant 
ships which carry on a trade, domestic and for- 
eign, greater than that which any other nation 
but one has ever maintained. All the national 
revenues are raised in such a way as to favor 
most the purely agricultural labor of slaves, and 
to afford the least impulse to the great wheel of 
manufacture, which is turned only by the hands 
of freemen. The custom-houses and the public 
lands pour forth two golden streams — one into 
the elections, to procure votes for the slavehold- 
j ing class ; and the other into the Treasury, to be 
enjoyed by those whom it shall see tit to reward 
with places in the public service. 

A walk of half a mile brings us to the portico 
of a great edifice, faultlessly conforming to the 
best style of Grecian architecture. This is the 
Department of the Interior, and here is its Sec- 
retarv. He is charged with the ministerial part 
of the administration of justice, with the dis- 
position of the public lands, the construction of 
buildings, the granting of patents, f>ud the pay- 
ment of pensions. His agents abound especially 
in the Territories and States, built on the public 
domain. You see them here among yourselves, 
and know them well. Did you ever know one 
of them whose devotion to the slaveholding 
class could be shaken by any miracle less than 
that which converted Saul of Tarsus, a perse- 
cutor of saints, into a preacher of righteousness? 
Merely turning a short corner, we reach the 
General Post Office. This is the great domicili- 
ary inquisition of the Government. It reaches, 
by long arras, with insinuating fingers, every 
settlement, village, city, and State capital, in 
forest, prairie, mountain, and plain, among the 
lakes and rivers of our own country, and per- 
vades with its presence the seas throughout the 



It 



whole earth. There is not one, of its more than 
twenty thousand agents, who is false to the 
slaveholding interest, unless indeed he is so ob- 
scure as to have escaped, not merely the notice 
of the chief of the Department itself, but also the 
envy of stimulated avarice and ambition in his 
own neighborhood. 

A circuit of half a mile has now brought us 
to the Dep.artments of "War" and the " Navy." 
Here two energetic and far-sighted ministers, 
brought from the slaveholding States, and 
identified with their policy, wield the two great 
physical forces of the Republic, each ready, on 
receiving a despatch by telegraph, to subdue re- 
sistance to reclaimants of fugitive slaves in Bos- 
ton, to disfranchising statutes in Kansas, or to 
slave coursers on the high seas. 

Finally, in the most unpretending of all the 
public edifices sits the Attorney General of the 
United States. It belongs to the office of an At- 
torney General to be a willing adviser and cun- 
ning executioner of the policy of the power by 
whom he was appointed. When or where, in all 
the meraorable struggles of liberty with prerog- 
ative, in this country or in Europe, has this 
character been more successfully illustrated than 
it has been by the present Attorney General, in 
his efforts to establish the interests of the slave- 
holding class, and crush out its opponents in the 
free States ? 

Fellow-citizens, you start with astonishment 
at the picture I have made, by simply bringing 
together well-known and familiar, but distant, 
objects into one group, and in a clear light. You 
say that it cannot be truthful. I reply, if it be 
not truthful, then let any one here, whatever 
may be his political bias or associations, point 
out a single figure that is wrongly placed on the 
canvass, or show a spot where the cold and pas- 
sionless shadowing I have given to it ought to 
be mellowed. 

You are impatient of my theme, but I cannot 
release you yet. Mark, if you please, that thus 
far I have only shown you the mere govern- 
mental organization of the slaveholding class in 
the United States, and pointed out its badges of 
supremacy, suggestive of your own debasement 
and humiliation. Contemplate now the reality 
of the power of that class, and the condition to 
which the cause of human nature has been re- 
duced. In all the free States, the slaveholder 
argues and debates the pretensions of his class, 
and even prosecutes his claim for his slave be- 
fore the delegate of the Federal Government, 
with safety and boldness, as he ought. He ex- 
horts the citizens of the free States to acquiesce, 
and even threatens them, in their very homes, 
with the terrors of disunion, if that acquiescence 
is withheld ; and he does all this with safety, as 
he ought, if it be done at all. He is listened to 
with patience, and replied to with decorum, ev&n 
in his most arrogant declamations, in the Halls 
of Congress. Through the effective sympathy 
of other property classes, the slaveholding power 
maintains with entire safety a press and perma- 
nent political organizations in all the free States. 
On the contrary, if you except the northern bor- 
der of Delaware, there is nowhere in any slave- 



holding State personal safety for a citizen, even 
of that State itself, who questions the rightful 
national domination of the slaveholding class. 
Debate of its pretensions, in the Halls of Con- 
gress, is carried on at the perils of limb and life. 
A free press is no sooner set up in a slaveholding 
State, than it is demolished, and citizens who as- 
semble peacefully to discuss even the extremest 
claims of Slavery are at first cautioned, and, if 
that is ineffectual, banished or slain, even more 
surely than the resistants of military despotism 
in the French Empire. Nor, except just now, 
has the case been much better, even in the free 
States. It is only as of yesterday, when the free 
citizens, assembled to discuss the exactions of 
the slaveholding class, were dispersed in Bos- 
ton, Utica, Philadelphia, and New York. It is 
only as of yesterday, that when I rose, on re- 
quest of citizens of Michigan, at Marshall, to 
speak of the great political questions of the day, 
I was enjoined not to make disturbance or to 
give offence by speaking of free soil, even on 
the ground which the Ordinance of 178T had 
saved to Freedom. It was only as^ of yesterday, 
that Protestant Churches and Theological Semi- 
naries, built on Puritan foundations, vied with 
the organs of the slaveholding class in denounc- 
ing a legislator who, in the act of making laws 
affecting its interests, declared that all human 
laws ought to be conformed to the standard of 
eternal justice. The day has even not yet passed 
when the press, employed in the service of edu- 
cation and morality, expurgates from the books 
which are put into the hands of the young all 
reflections on Slavery. The day yet lasts when 
the flag of the United States flaunts defiance on 
the high seas, over cargoes of human merchan- 
dise. Nor is there an American representative 
anywhere, in any one of the four quarters of the 
globe, that does not labor to suppress even there 
the discussion of American Slavery, lest it may 
possibly affect the safety of the slaveholding class 
at home. If, in a generous burst of sympathy with 
the struggling Protestant Democracy of Europe, 
we bring off the field one of their fallen champions, 
to condole with and comfort him, we suddenly 
discern that the mere agitation of the principles 
of Freedom tend to alarm the slaveholding class, 
and we cast him off again as a waif, not merely 
worthless, but dangerous to ourselves. The nat- 
ural and ancient order of things is reversed; 
Freedom has become subordinate, sectional, and 
local; Slavery in its influence and combinations 
has become predominant, national, and general. 
Free, direct, and manly utterance in the cause 
of Freedom, even in the free States themselves, 
leads to ostracism, while superserviceability to 
the slaveholding class alone secures preferment 
in the national councils. The descendants of 
Franklin, and Hamilton, and Jay, and King, are 
unprized — 

"till ihey learii to betray, 

Undistinsuisird they live, if they sh:nne not their sires, 
And the torcli that would lisrhi them to dignity's way, 
Must be caught fromihepilewheiitheir country expires." 

In this course of rapid public demoralization, 
what wonder is it that the action of the Govern- 
ment tends continually with fearfully augment- 



12 



ing force to the aggrandizement of the slave- 
holding class ? A Governrnent can never be bet- 
ter or wiser, or even so good or so wise as the 
people over whom it presides ? Who can wonder, 
then, that the Congress of the United States, in 
1820, gave to Slavery the west bank of the Missis- 
sippi quite up to the present line of Kansas, and 
was content to save for Freedom, out of the vast 
region of Louisiana, only Kansas and Nebraska ? 
Who can wonder that it consented to annex and 
admit Texas, with power to subdivide herself in- 
to five slave States, so as to secure the slavehold- 
ing class a balance against the free States then 
expected to be ultimately organized in Kansas 
and Nebraska ? Who can wonder, that when this 
annexation of Texas brought on a war with 
Mexico, which ended in the annexation of Up- 
per California and New Mexico, every foot of 
which was free from Afi'ican Slavery, Congress 
divided that vast Territory, reluctantly admitting 
the new State of California as a free State, be- 
cause she would not consent to establish Slavery, 
dismembered New Mexico, transferred a large 
portion of it to slaveholding Texas, and stipula- 
ted that what remained of New Mexico, together 
with Utah, should be received as slave States, if 
the people thereof should so demand? Who 
can wonder that the President, without any re- 
proof by Congress, simultaneously offered to 
Spain two hundred millions of dollars for the 
purchase of Cuba, that it might be divided into 
two slaveholding States, to be admitted as mem- 
bers of the Federal Union, and at the same time 
menaced the European Powers with war if they 
should interfere to prevent the consummation of 
the purchase? Who can wonder that, embold- 
ened with these concessions of the people. Con- 
gress at last sanctioned a reprisal by the slave- 
holding class upon the regions of Kansas and 
Nebraska, not on the ground of justice or for an 
equivalent, but simply on the ground that the 
original concession of them to Freedom was ex- 
torted by injustice and unconstitutional oppres- 
sion by the free States? Who can wonder that 
the slaveholding class, when it had obtained the 
sanction of Congress to that reprisal, by giving 
a pledge that the people of those Territories 
should be perfectly free nevertheless to estab- 
lish Freedom therein, invaded the Territory of 
Kansas with armed forces, inaugurated an usurp- 
ation, and established Slavery there, and dis- 
franchised the supporters of Freedom by tyran- 
nical laws, enforced by fire and sword, and that 
the President and Senate maintain and uphold 
the slaveholding interests in these culminating 
demonstrations of their power, while the House 
of Representatives lacks the power, because it 
is wanting in the virtue, to rescue the interests of 
Justice, Freedom, and Humanity ? Who can won- 
der that Federal Courts in Massachusetts indict 
defenders of Freedom for sedition, and in Pennsyl- 
vania subvert the State tribunals, and pervert 
the habeas corpus, the great writ of Liberty, into 
a process for arresting fugitive slaves, and con- 
strue into contempt, punishable by imprison- 
ment without bail or mainprize, the simple and 
truthful denial of personal control over a fugi- 
tive female slave, who has made her own volun- 



tary escape from bondage? Who can wonder 
that in Kansas lawyers may not plead or juries 
be empannelled in the Federal Courts, nor can 
even citizens vote, without first swearing to sup- 
port the Fugitive Slave Law and the Kansas and 
Nebraska act, while citizens who discuss through 
the press the right of slaveholders to domineer 
there, are punished with imprisonment or death ; 
free bridges over which citizens who advocate 
free institutions, may pass, free taverns where 
they may rest, and free presses through which 
they may speak, are destroyed under indictments 
for nuisances ; and those who peacefully assem- 
ble to debate the grievances of that class, and 
petition Congress for relief, are indicted for high 
treason? 

Just now, the wind sets with some apparent 
steadiness in the North, and you will readily 
confess therefore that I do not exaggerate the 
growing aggrandizement of the slaveholding 
class, but you will nevertheless insist that that 
aggrandizement is now and may be merely tem- 
porary and occasional. A moment's reflection, 
however, will satisfy you that this opinion is 
profoundly untrue. What is now seen is only 
the legitimate maturing of errors unresisted 
through a period of more than thirty years. All 
the fearful evils now upon us are oidy the inev- 
itable results of efforts to extinguish, by delays, 
concession, and compromises, a discussion to 
which Justice, Reason, and Humanity, are contin- 
ually lending their elemental fires. 

What, then, is the tendency of this aggrandize- 
ment of the slave interest, and what must be its 
end, if it be not now or speedily arrested? Im- 
mediate consequences are distinctly in view. 
The admission of Kansas into the Union as a 
slave State, the subsequent introduction of Sla- 
very by meanS' equally flagrant into Nebraska, 
and the admission of Utah with the twin pa- 
triarchal institutions of legalized Adultery and 
Slavery, and these three achievements crowned 
with the incorporation of Cuba into the Repub- 
lic. Beyond these visible fields lies a region 
of fearful speculation — the restoration of the 
African slave trade, and the desecration of all 
Mexico and Central America, by the infliction 
upon the half-civilized Spanish and Indian races 
dwelling there, by our hands, of a curse from 
which, inferior as they are to ourselves, they 
have had the virtue once to redeem themselves. 
Beyond this area last surveyed lies that of civil 
and servile wars, national decline and — bcin. 

I fear to open up these distant views, because 
1 know that you will attribute my apprehensions 
10 a morbid condition of mind. But confining 
myself to the immediate future which is so fear- 
fully visible, I ask you in all candor, first, wheth- 
er I have ever before exaggerated the aggrand- 
izement of the slaveholding class. Secondly, 
whether the movement that I now forbode is 
really more improbable than the evils once seem- 
ed, which are now a startling reality. 

How are these immediate evils, and whatever 
of greater evils that are behind them, to be pre- 
vented ? Do you expect that those who have 
heretofore counselled compromise, acquiescence, 
and submission, will change their course, and 



13 



come to the rescue of Liberty ? Even if this 
were a reasonable hope, are Cass, and Douglas 
and Buchanan, greater or better than the states- 
men who have opened the way of compromise, 
and led these modern statesmen into it? And 
if they indeed are so much greater and so much 
better, do you expect them to live forever? 

Perhaps you expect the slaveholding class will 
abate its pretensions, and practice voluntarily the 
moderation which you wish, but dare not demand 
at its hands. How long, and with what success, 
Lave you waited already for that reformation? 
Did any property class ever so reform itself? 
Did the Patricians in old Rome, the Noblesse or 
the Clergy in France? The Landholders in 
Ireland ? The landed Aristocracy in England ? 
Does the slaveholding class even seek to beguile 
you with such a hope ? Has it not become ra- 
pacious, arrogant, defiant? Is it not waging 
civil war against Freedom, wherever it encounters 
real resistance ? No ! no ! you have let the lion 
and the spotted leopard into the sheep-fold. 
They certainly will not die of hunger there, nor 
retire from disgust with satiety. They will re- 
main there so long as renewed appetite shall find 
multiplied prey. Be not self-deceived. When- 
ever a property class of any kind is invited by 
society to oppress, it will continue to oppress. 
Whenever a slaveholding class finds the non- 
slaveholding classes yielding, it will continue its 
work of subjugation. 

People of Michigan, I know full well that it 
seems ungracious in me to dwell on this painful 
theme. It is not such an acknowledgment of 
your manifold hospitalities as you expected. It 
is hard for the weary mariner to look steadily 
on the ^ewly-revealed rocks towards which he 
has too long been carelessly drifting. It is not 
easy for the prodigal to look with contentment 
on the rags and husks which meet him as he 
retires from the house of his harlotry. Never- 
theless, there is no way of escaping any immi- 
nent danger, without first calmly and steadily 
looking it fully in the face, and ascertaining its 
real nature and magnitude. 

Here again you will deny the justice of my 
parallels — you will claim to be merely innocent 
and unfortunate, and will upbraid the slave- 
holding class as the builders of this impending 
ruin. But you cannot escape so. The fault is 
not at all with that class, but with yourselves. 
The slaveholders only act according to their 
constitutions, education, and training. It is the 
noQ-slaveholding classes in the free States who 
are recreant to their own constitutions and false 
to their own instincts and impulses, and even 
to their own true interests. Who taught the 
slaveholding class that Freedom, which could not 
be wholly conquered at once, could be yielded 
in successive halves by successive compromises? 
Who taught the slaveholding class the specious 
theories of Non-intervention and Popular Sove- 
reignty, and the absolute obligation of tyran- 
nical laws enacted by armed usurpation ? Your 
own Cass, and Douglas, and Pierce, and Bu- 
chanan. Who established Cass, Douglas, Pierce, 
and Buchanan, at Washington, and gave them 
the power to march their slaveholding armies - 



into Kansas? The non-slaveholding society in 
the free States, and no portion of that society 
more willingly and more recklessly than you, 
the People of Michigan. 

You admit all this, and you ask how are 
these great evils, now so apparent, to be cor- 
rected — these great dangers, now so manifest, to 
be avoided. I answer, it is to be done, not as 
some of you have supposed, by heated debates 
sustained by rifles or revolvers at Washington, 
nor yet by sending armies with supplies and 
Sharpe's rifles into Kansas. I condemn no neces- 
sary exercise of the right of self-defence, any- 
where. Public safety is necessary to the practice 
of the real duties of champions of Freedom. 
But this is a contest in which the race is not to 
the physically swift, nor the battle to those who 
have most muscular strength. Least of all is it 
to be won by retaliation and revenge. The vic- 
tory will be to those who shall practice the high- 
est moral courage, with simple fidelity to the 
principles of humanity and justice. Notwith- 
standing all the heroism of your champions in 
Washington and Kansas, the contest will be 
fearfully endangered, if the slaveholding class 
shall win the President and the Congress in this 
great National Canvass. Even although every 
one of these champions should perish in his 
proper field, yet the Rights of Man will be saved, 
and the tide of oppression will be rolled back 
from our Northern plains, if a President and a 
Congress shall be chosen who are true to Freedom. 
The People, and the People only, are sovereign 
and irresistible, whether they will the ascendency 
of Slavery or the triumph of Liberty. 

Harsh as my words may have seemed, I do 
my kinnsmen and brethren of the free States no 
such injustice as to deny that great allowances 
are to be made for the demoralization I have de- 
scribed. We inherited complicity with the 
slaveholding class, and with it prejudices of 
caste. We inherited confidence and affection 
towards our Southern brethren — and with these, 
our political organizations, and profound rever- 
ence for political authorities, all adverse to the 
needful discussion of Slavery. Above all, we 
inherited a fear of the dissolution of the Union, 
which can only be unwholesome when it ceases 
equally to afi'ect the conduct of all the great par- 
ties to that sacred compact. All these inherit- 
ances have created influences upon our political 
conduct, which are rather to be deplored than 
condemned. I trust that at last these influences 
are about to cease. I trust so, because, if we have 
inherited the demoralization of Slavery, we have 
also attained the virtue required for emancipa- 
tion. If we have inherited prejudices of caste, 
we have also risen to the knowledge that politi- 
cal safety is dependent on the rendering of equal 
and exact justice to all men. And if we have 
suffered our love for the Union to be abused so 
as to make us tolerate the evils that more than 
all others endanger it, we have discerned that 
great error at last. If we should see a citizen 
who had erected a noble edifice, sit down inact- 
ively in its hall, avoiding all duly and enter- 
prise, lest he might provoke enemies to pull it 
down over his head, or one who had built a ma- 



u 



jestic vessel, moor it to the wharf, through fear 
that he might peradventure run it upon the 
rocks, we should condemn his fatuity and folly. 
TVe have learned at last that the American peo- 
ple labor not only under the responsibility of 
preserving this Union, but also under the re- 
sponsibility of making it subserve the advance- 
ment of Justice and Humanity, and that neglect 
of this last responsibility involves the chief peril 
to which the Union itself is exposed. 

I shall waste little time on the newly-invented 
apologies for continued demoralization. The 
question now to be decided is, whether a slave- 
holding class exclusively shall govern Ameri- 
ca, or whether it shall only bear divided sway 
with non-slaveholding citizens. It concerns all 
persons equally, whether they are Protestants or 
Catholics, native-born or exotic citizens. And 
therefore it seems to me that this is no time for 
trials of strength between the native-born and 
the adopted freemen, or between any two 
branches of one common Christian brother- 
hood. 

As little shall I dwell on merely personal par- 
tialities or prejudices affecting the candidates 
for public trusts. Each fitly personates the 
cause he represents. Beyond a doubt, Mr. Bu- 
chanan is faithful to the slaveholding class, as 
Mr. Fillmore vacillates between it and its op- 
ponents. I know Mr. Fremont well ; and when 
I say that I know that he combines extraordi- 
nary genius and unquestionable sincerity of 
purpose with unusual modesty, I am sure that 
you will admit that he is a true representative 
of the Cause of Freedom. 

Discarding sectionalism, and loving my coun- 
try and all its parts, and bearing an affection 
even to the slaveholding class, none the less 



sincere because it repels me, I cordially adopt 
the motto which it too often hangs out to delude 
us. I know no North, no South, no East, and 
no West ; for I know that he Avho would offer 
an acceptable sacrifice in the present crisis must 
conform himself to the divine instructions, that 
neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, 
shall we worship the Father ; but the hour 
Cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers 
shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth. 

Last of all, I stop not to argue with those 
who decry agitation and extol conservatism, not 
knowing that conservatism is of two kinds — that 
one which, yielding to cowardly fear of present 
inconvenience or danger, covers even political 
leprosy with protecting folds ; and that other 
and better conservatism, that heals, in order that 
the body of the Commonwealth may be health- 
ful and immortal. 

Fellow-citizens, I am aware that I have spo- 
ken with seriousness amounting to solemnity. 
Do not infer from thence that I am despondent 
or distrustful of present triumph and ultimate 
regeneration. It has required a strong pressure 
upon the main-spring of the public virtue to 
awaken its elasticity. Such pressure has reach- 
ed the centre of the spring at last. They who 
have reckoned that its elasticity was lost, are 
now discovering their profound mistake. The 
people of the United States have dallied long 
with the acactus, and floated carelessly on the 
calm seas that always reflect summer skies, bat 
they have not lost their preference for their own 
changeless yZewr de lis, and they consult no other 
guidance, in their course over the waters, than 
that of their own bright, particular, and con- 
stant star, the harbinger of Liberty. 



PC 11 ^ 









0' -^ ^.,,.- ^v o^ 










,^ ..." ^-^ 



>^^^ '^o c:^ .^^^^A• 










0' 



i"^ '-^^^<< ^£;m^..\ -^^^-^ ^' - ^^rS 














*bv^ '^'^-C^ 




.0^ 



° .^'^- ^^^fe^ 



T. s- G" o^ 'o. ." 



-n-o^ 



0^ U/^.'^ y^^ 

















,0^ ^ 













'^o^ 



A" 



A 



A^ 



s , 



,^^ 



.0 



.^" 






.0' 









A^ 







-^^ "^ 






D0BBS3P.0S. - ^V ^-^^i^T^^ a^' "^O "*'o^;^> ^'^'' "^^ °-'^ff^''\0 

LIBRARY BINDING <J. '..= <0 ^ °»* \^ ^^ *' ^ 

JUL 69 :^::^. %^ . ^° ..^, °-^.^ / .v-^*. %. „. ^° ,; 

ST. AUGUSTINE "l-^O,* -^0^ * <iB^^ . 0> c 7^1^ 



